To this faith, to this assurance, is largely attributable the influence unquestionably possessed by Browning as a teacher in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For the intentionally didactic element in the work may not honestly be ignored in whatever degree it is held to militate against artistic merit. Amid the throng of seekers after Truth in the world of poetry, Browning stands pre-eminent as one who not only sought Truth, but, having gained what he held to be Truth, kept it as "the sole prize of Life." Poets of the school of thought of which Matthew Arnold and A. H. Clough may perhaps be regarded as among the more prominent exponents, are able to give no even approximately satisfying answer to the questionings bound inevitably to arise, at some time or other, in all minds whose energies are not dissipated by a too ready compliance with the demands of the hour. In certain moods their work appeals to us irresistibly, but the appeal is one of sympathy with doubt rather than of suggestion of solution. The author of _Obermann_ may indeed in "hours of gloom" remind us that there have been "hours of insight"; that the individual soul, though through prolonged struggle and effort alone, may "mount hardly to eternal life." The consolation he would offer to spiritual depression is that of self-dependence. Nature may soothe, but is powerless to satisfy; the appeal to her is answered by that which, although "severely clear," is but "an air-born voice," directing the enquirer back upon himself-- Resolve to be thyself, and know that he Who finds himself loses his misery.[2] So, too, Clough, sympathizing fully with doubt, may in his more inspired moments speak of hope and of the assurance 'Tis better to have fought and lost Than never to have fought at all. Although from his pen has come at least one short poem[3] worthy in invigorating force of the faith of Browning himself, yet the note of defeat rather than the ring of triumph is more generally characteristic of his language. Tennyson had splendid glimpses of the Truth, passing visions of glory; yet here, too, the vision was but transitory, the full glory evanescent.